Add and Remove Drivers Offline

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Deployment Image Servicing and Management (DISM.exe) is a command-line tool used to update offline Windows® images. There are two ways to install or remove drivers offline with DISM. You can either apply an unattended answer file to the offline image, or you can add or remove the drivers directly from the command prompt.

This topic includes:

Add Drivers to an Offline Image by Using DISM

Remove Drivers from an Offline Image by Using DISM

Add Drivers to an Offline Windows Image by Using an Unattended Answer File

Add Drivers to an Offline Image by Using DISM

When you use DISM to install a device driver to an offline image, the device driver is added to the driver store. The driver store is a location on the computer that contains all of the drivers for that computer. When Plug and Play runs, detected devices are matched with device drivers in the driver store.

Boot-critical drivers are reflected on the system. Driver reflection is the process of installing a driver on a computer that might or might not have a device for that driver. Typically, this involves copying the driver files to a destination location and creating the service.

At an elevated command prompt, navigate to the Windows OEM Preinstallation Kit (Windows OPK) servicing folder, and type the following command to retrieve the name or index number for the image you want to modify.

Dism /Get-WimInfo /WimFile:C:\test\images\install.wim

An index or name value is required for most operations that specify a WIM file.

Multiple drivers can be added on one command line if you specify a folder instead of an .inf file. To install all of the drivers in a folder and all its subfolders use the /recurse option. For example,

Dism /Image:C:\test\offline /Add-Driver /Driver:c:\drivers /Recurse

To install an unsigned driver, use /ForceUnsigned to override the requirement that drivers installed on X64-based computers must have a digital signature. For example,

Review the contents of the %WINDIR%\Inf\ directory in the mounted Windows image to ensure that the .inf files were installed. Drivers added to the Windows image are named Oem*.inf. This is to ensure unique naming for new drivers added to the computer. For example, the files MyDriver1.inf and MyDriver2.inf are renamed Oem0.inf and Oem1.inf.

At a command prompt, type the following command to commit the changes and unmount the image.

At a command prompt, type the following command to commit the changes and unmount the image.

Dism /Unmount-Wim /MountDir:C:\test\offline /Commit

Add Drivers to an Offline Windows Image by Using an Unattended Answer File

It is important to note that all drivers in the directory and subdirectories that are referenced in the answer file are added to the image. You should manage the answer file and these directories carefully to address concerns about increasing the size of the image with unnecessary driver packages.

Locate the device driver .inf files that you intend to install on your Windows image.

Use Windows System Image Manager (Windows SIM) to create an answer file that contains the paths to the device drivers that you intend to install.

Add the Microsoft-Windows-PnpCustomizationsNonWinPE component to your answer file in the offlineServicing configuration pass.

Expand the Microsoft-Windows-PnpCustomizationsNonWinPE node in the answer file. Right-click DevicePaths, and then select Insert New PathAndCredentials.

A new PathAndCredentials list item appears.

For each location that you intend to access, add a separate PathAndCredentials list item.

In the Microsoft-Windows-PnpCustomizationsNonWinPE component, specify the path to the device driver and the credentials used to access the file if the file is on a network share.

Note

You can include multiple device driver paths by adding multiple PathAndCredentials list items. If you add multiple list items, you must increment the value of Key for each path. For example, you can add two separate driver paths where the value of Key for the first path is equal to 1 and the value of Key for the second path is equal to 2.

Save the answer file and exit Windows SIM. The answer file must be similar to the following sample.

The .inf files referenced in the path in the answer file are added to the Windows image.

Review the contents of the %WINDIR%\Inf\ directory in the mounted Windows image to ensure that the .inf files were installed. Drivers added to the Windows image are named Oem*.inf. This is to ensure unique naming for new drivers added to the computer. For example, the files MyDriver1.inf and MyDriver2.inf are renamed Oem0.inf and Oem1.inf.

Unmount the .wim file and commit the changes. For example,

Dism /Unmount-Wim /MountDir:C:\test\offline /Commit

If you need drivers for Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) to see the local hard disk drive or a network, you must use the windowsPE configuration pass of an answer file to add drivers to the Windows PE driver store and to reflect boot-critical drivers required by Windows PE. For more information, see Add Device Drivers by Using Windows Setup.